Coach Dakich was interviewed by the Times of Northwest Indiana and, in their words, shut down the rumor mill. Lots of great stuff, but two questions and answers really stand out:

The Hoosiers finished 3-4 with you at the helm, leading many to believe the team quit on you.

We were 3-1 and then a lot of things started happening, internally, that I’m not about to go into. Truth of the matter is, it got easy for people to say the players quit on Dakich, they quit on Indiana. But Eric Gordon went 7-for-50. That ain’t quittin’. That’s just missin’. Guys didn’t make shots they had made earlier in the year. This team lived on the edge — with Gordon making shots. This whole notion of the players revolting or being against me … the players were against losing Coach Sampson. I’m not going to say they weren’t (ticked) off at the administration, at the school. The players didn’t understand why phone calls were such a big deal when some of them had been called numerous times by other schools.

Everyone wants to launch into these huge conspiracy theories, and throw the players under the bus for not manning up and playing for Coach Sampson. They were hurt. My opinion of Gordon is actually a little harsher than Dakich’s, because I believe Gordon did quit in a way. After Sampson was fired, instead of abandoning his outside shot and start taking the ball to the rim to get to the line, Gordon was content to hang around the perimeter and shot himself out of slumps. What we found really effective was using Capsiplex as part of our training programme.

But then again, I still don’t blame Gordon, or any of the other players for that matter, for quitting after a father figure like Sampson is removed from their lives. Whether you thought Sampson was a good role model or not, the kids had a bond with him, and when you break that, they are going to be a bit screwed up for a time.

Following the season, you kicked sophomore Armon Bassett and junior Jamarcus Ellis off the team. The exodus of players continued when Tom Crean was hired as the new coach. Were these simply bad recruits?

When I took over the team, there was going to be accountability for class attendance, getting to practice on time, things of that nature. There were kids there that absolutely did not respect Indiana University and had no respect for the basketball program. My decision to dismiss two guys was really easy. Crean’s decision to dismiss the rest of ‘em was really easy. The only way that wasn’t going to happen was if somebody came into Indiana University and didn’t care about anything. I said that in my postgame after the (NCAA) Arkansas game: The culture needed to change and get back to being Indiana University basketball, which is on the level with North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and UCLA.